Net Force Read Online Free

your door with a bottle of champagne again.
        Dammit, somebody had put out a good man’s lights, snuffed him like a blown-out match, and all Alex Michaels was left with at this moment was the heat of his own anger. Whoever had done it was going to pay-he was going to make it happen if it was the last thing he ever did!
        He sighed. There was nothing else to be done here. The killers would be a long way away by now, and all the door-knocking and witness-interviewing wouldn’t turn up anything immediately useful. The shooters weren’t hiding in one of the run-down buildings, and even with a photographically accurate description of the assassins, it wouldn’t do the investigators much good-they wouldn’t be locals. The public didn’t know it, but professional killers seldom got caught. Nine out of ten icemen who were caught were turned in by the people who’d hired them, and Michaels didn’t see that as very likely in a high-profile operation such as this. Those responsible would know the authorities would not be satisfied merely with locking up triggermen. Nobody would be giving up anybody in this kind of deal. If this was a mob job and the bosses got nervous, the shooters would likely disappear into a lime pit two kilometers past the end of the road in Nowhere, Mississippi. And maybe the guys who shot them would go away, too.
        Net Force had access to the highest technological resources on the planet, the fastest computers on the net, a wealth of information beyond measure. The agents on-line and in the field were also the best and brightest, culled from the cream of the FBI, the NSA, the nation’s top universities and police and military agencies. And none of it would help if the assassins hadn’t made some kind of mistake. If Net Force didn’t get some kind of break. Michaels had been in the business too long to try to pretend otherwise.
        Then again, even professional killers weren’t perfect.
        Now and then, they did slip up. And if they’d made the slightest slip here, something so small it could only have been seen with an electron microscope, Alex Michaels was going to move the entire solar system if necessary to find it.
        His virgil cheeped.
        “Yes?”
        “Alex? Walt Carver.”
        Michaels let another small sigh escape. Walter S. Carver, Director of the FBI. He’d been expecting the call.
        “Yes, sir.”
        “I’m sorry about Steve. Anything to report?”
        Michaels gave his boss what they had. When he was done, Carver said, “All right. We’ve got a meeting with the President and his National Security Team at 0730 at the White House. Put together what we’ve got. You’ll be doing the presentation.”
        “Yes, sir.”
        “Oh, and as of now, you’re Acting Commander of Net Force.”
        “Sir, I-”
        Carver cut him off. “I know, I know, but I need somebody in the chair and you’re him. I don’t mean to sound dismissive of Steve’s death, but Net Force is responsible for a whole lot more than one man’s fate, no matter who he might be. Everybody will bump up a notch, Toni will take your old job. I’ll need the President to sign off on it, but we should be able to get you confirmed as Commander in a few days.”
        “Sir-”
        “I need you here, Alex. You aren’t going to let me down, are you?”
        Michaels stared at the virgil. He didn’t have any choice in this. Shook his head. “No, sir. I won’t let you down.”
        “Good man. I’ll see you in the morning. Try to get some sleep-you don’t want to sound like a zombie when you lay this out. Full assassination protocols are in effect, you understand?”
        “Yes, sir.”
        “Go home, Alex.”
        Michaels stared at his car, at the bodyguard and chauffeur who stood watching and waiting. He had a little over six hours to put together a presentation for the President of the United States and his hard-nosed security advisors-not to